 This is your House Agriculture and Forestry Committee. We're all here today and I hope you're all doing well. We have some special guests today to, as you all know, we start every meeting with a report on COVID-19 issues. And we are very fortunate to have representatives of our federal delegation here today. I actually don't see Tom Berry yet. He was having trouble getting into the meeting. So we hope that he is going to be able to do that. Right now, I'd like to turn to Erica Cummings. Erica works for Senator Bernie Sanders and we thank you, Erica, for spending some time with us today. We have about an hour to talk with the three of you. And so we'd like to hear any kind of update you can offer us in particular regarding COVID-19. If you want to unmute yourself, that would be fantastic. Thanks, Carolyn. I was wondering who that Erica Cummings woman was. My name is Erica Campbell. There is an Erica Cummings who is in the agriculture world. So I suppose- I thought something was wrong. I suppose that could be an easy mistake. Sorry, Erica. No problem at all. There's a lot going on. See, yeah, so I mean, we were going to start this presentation out with Tom because he was going to do a high-level overview of the legislation passed so far, particularly the CARES Act. I'm on it, Erica. Oh, Erica, excellent. It's got on. Thank you, Tom. So- But really, what's to do? So you go ahead. No, why don't you go, Tom? Because I was going to talk about the nutrition. So I think given the high level on CARES, where we're at, talking about dairy, I think would be best. And then I mean, I almost think maybe the nutrition should be last. I'm not sure. Ryan's going to be talking about a lot of the small business programs today, which I also work on that issue. So why don't you start and we'll go from there. Okay, I'll start. Great, welcome, Tom. Oh, I'm sorry, hi. Hi, everybody. All right, I think we're having a hard time hearing you. Oh, there you are. Welcome. Tom, we can't hear you. At least I can't. I don't know what's going on, but we can't hear you. How is that? Is that any better? That is better. It's not great, but it's better. Now we can't hear you again. Before I'm going to, I know at this point, if I turn off my camera, maybe that will help with bandwidth. Okay. I don't know where you live, but maybe you just don't have the strength to do it from your area. You know, I can't hear you that way either. Tom, I'm seeing. Yes, it's still, we can't hear you at all now. Can't hear me at all. I mean, I can sort of hear you talking, but you sound like you're way far down in a well or something. It sucks if you're part of my friends. So I'm going to sign off on Zoom and call in on the phone line. Well, we can hear you just then. You can hear me now. We can hear you now. I think as long as you say really, no, I think you should just call in. Sorry. We'll wait for you. We need broadband. Yes. We need fiber, actually. We have fiber running up the hill about three quarters of a mile from me, but can we attach to it? No. All right, we'll just wait for Tom. I wish I had some jokes I could tell. We need fiber artists, Carolyn. Yes. Yeah, actually, I told the guys, I'm working on the set of masks that'll bring me up to 100 masks. So the sheep is still in a belligerent state of early labor. I don't know how long she can do this. So if I am summoned because it becomes problematic, I will leave, but otherwise you're stuck with me. Okay, good. We like being stuck with you. All right, no sign of Tom yet. I'm happy to start the nutrition update if that would be helpful. And we can, Tom can, you either interrupt it when Tom gets on or I can finish up and get away. Sure. Yeah. Yes, why don't you go ahead, Erica, thanks so much. Oh, you're very welcome. So for the record, my name is Erica Campbell with Senator Sanders office here in Vermont. I work on nutrition and agriculture issues as well as small business. So just a quick overview of where we're at. Most of the nutrition support that's come through the federal relief slash stimulus bills was actually in the, in the earlier bill, the family's first act. There's been the subsequent CARES Act that had was a very large bill. And Tom will talk about that more as well as Ryan. And when you're ready, if you can hear me, can you hear me now? Yeah, go ahead, Tom. Thanks, Tom. Otherwise, I'll jump in. No, go ahead, jump in. I think that's fine with you. Great care, Erica. Yeah. Yes. Go ahead, Tom. Okay, well, a little disjointed, but I guess so are a lot of things right now, right? Not knowing what you may have covered already, Erica probably started out by talking about the CARES Act. And I think everybody's probably somewhat familiar with that legislation that passed a little over a week ago. And it provides, potentially provides assistance for agriculture in a number of ways. There are small business programs that I understand Ryan's going to take a deeper dive into and all of us have been scrambling over the last week to try to figure out exactly how those small business programs may or may not be of help to agriculture. And we can get into that further as we go forward. And then in addition for agriculture in particular, the legislation does a couple of things. The main agricultural section is fairly brief. In fact, I will read the entire section that is generally on agriculture. $9.5 billion to remain available until expended to prevent, prepare for and respond to coronavirus by providing support to agricultural producers impacted by the coronavirus, including producers of specialty crops, producers that supply local food systems, including farmers markets, restaurants and schools, and livestock producers, including dairy producers. And that's it for- Tom, would you be willing to send that little blurb to Linda so that she could send that out to us? Yeah, I'll send that to her right now. And that's a fairly brief description of how to spend $9.5 billion with a B dollars for agriculture. And so it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I'll point out again that it specifically refers to specialty crops and farmers markets and dairy with dairy and livestock being the only commodity sectors called out, local food systems. A lot of words that we all like in Vermont and described the Vermont food system, but the, how these dollars roll out is left entirely at the discretion of the secretary of agriculture, within those fairly broad constraints of the legislation. So the question has been for the past week plus since this past is how and when the secretary will begin rolling out these dollars. And there's still not a lot of clarity on that. In digging around and looking for some clues, the US House, ad committee chair Peterson did have a conversation with Secretary Perdue within the last couple of days and then made some comments related to what his understanding from Secretary Perdue was. And it was a long, what was said was fairly positive from the point of view of those, to state, well, the crop types mentioned, local food and food systems. Peterson indicated that Perdue told him that in fact it would be directed at those types of crops and not provided to the larger commodity crops that had benefited somewhat disproportionately from the trade adjustment payments that were made in recent years. And so there's, there's indications that there will be substantial funds paid to specialty crop growers and dairy out of the 9.5 billion and Perdue was quoted saying he will hold off on eight commodity growers for now. But of course that will remain to be seen and there's nothing concrete that I've seen thus far. In addition to that, there was $14 billion put into the CCC funds and that's the source of funds that provides not only for the market facilitation program but also covers the dairy margin coverage program. So that account has been refunded, there's money there and those dollars can be and probably will be put out in more like the trade adjustment payments that were familiar with from the last couple of years. And again, there's not a lot of transparency yet on when and how those payments might go out. And the bill also, and I know Erica's gonna get into nutrition so I won't go too far into this but it does provide additional funding for a number of the nutrition programs as well. And I'll leave the discussion of that to Erica. So I think those are between the SBA programs that are to some extent applicable to agriculture and certainly to agricultural businesses, the $9.5 billion for especially crops, et cetera. And the replenishment of the CCC funds and then the programs related to nutrition are the main areas in which the CARES Act has provided funding. I will say, and again, without getting into details and leaving that to Ryan that on the SBA programs it's become evident that the money is gonna run out very quickly and the Senate right now is scrambling Senator McConnell wants before the end of the week through unanimous consent to push more money into the SBA programs because those are becoming very quickly depleted. And so I can take a breath and then get into any of this in more detail or we can have a discussion. Mooc, let the others weigh in as well. Very good, thanks so much, Tom. Erica, you mentioned that you thought Ryan might go next and then you would follow up with the nutrition. Do you think that's a good idea or do you wanna continue? Well, I do because I think that the small business portions of the, especially the CARES Act are just so relevant to agriculture and dairy farms, et cetera right now and it kinda makes more sense to lump those two together. So do you wanna go, Ryan? And then I can jump in on nutrition. Yeah, sure, thank you. I'm Ryan McLaren, I work for Congressman Peter Welch and the two main programs I'm sure you all have heard about from the CARES Act, we have a small business administration are the Paycheck Protection Program, PPP or the EIDL Program, which is the emergency. Erica, help me out here, I've lost the acronym. Oh, the IDLE is, I don't have in front of me, but it's Emergency Economic Damage Law. Economic Damage Law. Sorry, thank you. What was the I again? Injury, yeah, that's it. Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program. Good, tag team. So for the purposes of agriculture, I think it's with the EIDL Program we can start with the baseline at this point, which is that the SBA is not accepting loan applications from farms. And that's an area that we are seeking to clarify as a delegation with the small business administration. It seems relatively clear to us that that was the legislative intent that farms would be included and that money would be available to them. But the small business administration up to this point has taken the view that if you have received a loan through the USDA at some point, then you're not eligible for that program. So the delegation as a whole is working to clarify that and to make our intentions clear that we expected, fully expected in writing the bill that farm businesses would have access to that program. So in the agriculture context, I'd say just stay tuned there. We can keep you up to date on that as it progresses. The other program, the PPP program is open for farm businesses. And so that program is designed essentially to keep people on payrolls, both to benefit workers and employers to maintain that employee-employer relationship and keep people off unemployment. And so businesses are able to borrow up to 250% of their average payroll, monthly payroll costs. And there are a number of things that are included in that, up to $100,000 of salary for each employee. Farms are eligible as long as they meet the small business administration's eligibility requirements, which generally is here under 500 employees. So that would apply to the, I don't know if there's a farm in Vermont that wouldn't be eligible for that under that threshold. And it also applies for independent contractors or self-employed folks. So if you're running a very small farm and you're a sole proprietor of that farm, the program would also be open to you. It's important to note, I think that the program opens to... Ryan, you're freezing up. I don't know if it's me or you. It's definitely him. Yeah, I'll leave it there. There's some ag-specific components to it. Like, if you have an H2A or an H2B worker on your farm, that would not count towards your payroll costs. Ryan, you froze up. Oh, sorry. And wait, you were talking about a business can borrow up to 250% of their average payroll up to $100,000 per year for an employee. Yeah, and it's a $10 million max total. Okay, they can borrow up to $10 million. Yeah, and that is inclusive of the pay, the salary is capped at $100,000, but you can include healthcare benefits, leave time, those costs in the calculation above the $100,000 per employee cap. It's really just the wage that's capped at $100,000. And then for relevant, for agriculture specifically, H2A and H2B workers wouldn't count towards the payroll calculation because the employee's principal place of residence needs to be the United States. So if you have US-based employees, they would count towards that calculation. And then also, I mean, I think it counts the owner's compensation also. So in the case of a sole proprietor, you're calculating what essentially is your payroll as in what you take home. And sometimes that can be, it's confusing because in a lot of instances, it's not a lot. And so at the end of the, I think it's early June, by early June, if you have used that loan to essentially for payroll for what it's intended, if 80% of that loan goes to maintaining your payroll, then that loan will be completely forgiven at the end of the loan period. So it's really a grant program as long as you're using it to maintain employees in your business. So you can essentially borrow or be granted $10 million as long as you keep your people employed. Could you just say that again? Sorry, my computer muted you. Can you ask that question one more time? I said, so is the $10 million potentially a grant as long as you keep your people employed? Yes, exactly. There are requirements you have to meet as you use that money, but as long as you meet those requirements, it will be forgiven at the end of the loan term. So it will essentially convert into a grant as long as you're keeping payroll on board. And so I think the last thing I'll mention is that there is some concern that this money is running out quite quickly. And so we've been encouraging people that think they might be interested in it, even if you're on the fence, it's worth giving your lender a call immediately most banks in Vermont are able to process these applications at this point. And the sooner it's a first come, first serve thing. So the sooner you get in line, the safer you'll be. There is, as Tom mentioned, a lot of work happening in DC to add money into the program because of how quickly it's been going, but the sooner the better for anyone that is interested. And that's known as the Payroll Protection Program. Yeah, and I sent Linda some FAQs on both these programs before the meeting so she can share them with you all. They're really useful for businesses who have questions. Great, thank you so much, Ryan. All right. Can I add just a couple of things related to those programs? Sure, Tom, and then when you're done, you could mute yourself. That would be great just because of background noise. But go ahead. Yeah, I've been trying to stay on mute, but I might have forgotten you in a minute. We've all been troubleshooting these over the last week. And on the EIDL program, I've dealt with a few folks who are filling out the application. They consider themselves a farm and they kind of put that farm box and you get shunted off the application. It's not available, but Maple is okay to apply. And I've got that in writing from the Vermont SBA folks. So if you're doing any processing, packaging, retailing, and wholesaling of Maple, as long as that's a standalone business from the farm, you're gonna be okay. And then the other is that for our diversified farms, if more than, and people should look at this carefully, but if more than 50% of the revenues on the farm are coming from the retail farm stand, the ag tourism piece of it. And then I talked to a farmer that was in exactly the situation yesterday. They probably qualify for that program and they just need to check a box other than agriculture if they're getting more than half of their revenues from those other, you know, the Maple sugaring, the ag tourism, the retail. If I follow that as the largest amount of the money that they're dealing with on the farm, they're probably qualified. Even though as a farm or agriculture operation, they would not be. And that's the emergency injury disaster loan program. Right. And then one other thing that we've, I know the other offices worked on this too. People initially filling out the paycheck protection program that we saw among the SBA prerequirements that any small business, Ryan mentioned the 500 employee limit. There's also a million dollar revenue limit. And that doesn't get you much on a dairy farm. That's maybe a 250 cow, 220 cow dairy farm depending on the price of milk. And you get bumped at that point, but we've been told that that does not apply to this particular program, just to other SBA programs. So any farmer that runs into that million dollar threshold can go right past it, as well as the information that we have from the SBA. Okay, that's for the EI. That's for the PPP. Oh, okay. All right. So now I'm a little bit confused. Where is that million dollar revenue threshold or cap? For the paycheck protection program that Ryan was describing, the refundable loan, if you keep the employees on. And what was the first thing you mentioned regarding a limitation on that program? There is a- Was that a problem? Erica, if you know, go ahead. Well, I thought you were talking about the limitation that Ryan had mentioned, which was around whether you were going to have a payback we're going to have a payback on the full amount of the loan or a certain amount. So that's a different issue. And I did wanna add a little bit of information there because in statute, it only does say six months of covering the loan. Okay. It's not fully clear yet from Treasury if it's only going to be six months or if it's the two full year life of the loan. And that's on the PPP. But sorry, was there another question that you had, Carolyn? No, I was just curious. I wanna get these programs straight because I'll probably mention them in my weekly article. So on the PPP, you can't make more than a million dollars in revenue per year. Is that it? There's no amount of cap on the PPP, Tom, I don't think. Right, I was saying there is no cap but some people who are applying early ran into that as they tried to apply. And so if they run into what looks like a million dollar cap they should disregard it. Okay, fantastic. Erica, did you wanna add to this? You're muted, Erica. Sorry, I just wanted to mention that right now farm credits across the country are having a lot of trouble signing up to be an SBA approved lender. And you have to become that to be able to give out PPP loans. Here in Vermont, we're slightly better than some other places. We do have VEDA back online to already do this. Most lenders are only working with existing clients or sometimes past clients like Vermont Community Loan Fund is also working with some past clients as well. But if you don't have an existing relationship with a lender, it's gonna be really hard to get a loan and that is definitely potentially problematic in terms of equal access. The farm credits have had a really tough time signing up for this. Yankee Farm Credit is ahead of the curve but they have still not sort of sealed the deal to become an approved lender. Yeah, they have 70 loans lined up. So there's farms ready to sign up for this program and there's just hiccups and bumps in the road to getting certain lenders on and certain people signed up and it's a constantly changing landscape. And so the delegation staff is just trying to be up to speed as possible. But again, it's changing all the time. We've been really recommending businesses and farms to contact business advisors on this to help make decisions. SBDC is extremely up to date on all of the changes. And I think they're also passing that onto the farm viability providers. So, we're really fortunate here in Vermont to have such an incredible network that of people that are trying to understand this changing landscape so rapidly and give our farmers advice. Great, Erica, does it make sense then if a farm has not had to take out a loan in the past that they contact, it sounds like VitaVac might be their best chance of making, establishing some kind of relationship so you just muted yourself. Sorry. Sorry, I thought I was doing the reverse there. I don't have the best advice there because I know lenders are, being cautious on taking new folks right now when they have existing clients. And right now, there's one of the biggest challenges between the banks and treasury that they were given terms for these programs that were just not going to work well for them. And they didn't feel like they'd have, there wasn't the risk. It was, there was just a lot of issues for the banks in terms of what risk they were taking on. And so, and just massive unclearity in the programs as well. So, that's why they said, well, if we're working with existing clients, they're in good standing, it gives them some assurance that at least that they can, they have a little bit more assurance there to be able to make it work for their bank in terms of their financial situation. Thanks, Erica. Sharon Fagard has her hand up. Sharon? Yes. Thank you. Do we have any idea when these monies will actually be available? Anyone? That's a great question. I don't know if you have any more insight, Erica, but we, our office has heard from a number of folks, particularly on the EIDL program, because at first the Small Business Administration was making the claim that people could get this grant within like three days. And there's just a, there is a backlog. Once, I guess that might still be true if your loan has been approved, but there's a huge backlog in the approval process of people's loans are still pending. It's our goal and, you know, I think the SBA's goal to get the money out as soon as they possibly can, but it's unclear exactly what that timeline is. Anyone else wanna say a word? Yeah, I'd say very much the intent is to get it out quickly and people have queued up and applied. So from the perspective of how quickly federal grants and loans usually move pretty quickly, but, you know, we'll see, you know, whether it's days or weeks, certainly it shouldn't be any longer than that. I'll add to, you know, to totally confuse you on the terms loans versus grants, that the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, EIDL loan program does start out upfront with a grant of up to $10,000, depending on some issues related to your business. So somebody who just says, I simply can't take on any more loans, there is a grant that's built into that program too, if the person qualifies. And when we move forward to put more money into these programs, which may be happening within the next few days, if things go smoothly, I'm sure that I know in the Senate and probably in the House, there will be a move to include agriculture in this EIDL program. So we'll let you know if that happens and that may broaden the program to include agriculture. Fantastic. Vicki, I see your hand up. Yeah, thank you. I'm just wondering what kind of outreach is being done to businesses or farms so they know these things are available. It always just kind of feels like a rumor out there. And when, when can we do this? Is there specific outreach somehow happening? Vicki, did you see the agency of agriculture did send a newsletter out that included a variety of information from the state as well as there were, I think it was a link to the PPP and some of that information. You know, I think that there could be a little bit, it's from my perspective, from our office perspective, we've been sending information a little bit out to our farmer contacts, but it has been changing so quickly and it's hard to sometimes know like how much you send out and versus how much it's changing. And so we've just sort of let our farmer contacts know, this isn't really rapidly changing environment and letting us know if you have questions. But I do think it's a great question and maybe that's something to ask the agency of agriculture. Yeah. Vicki, I, there's, it started to interrupt, but I was just looking in Diane on Friday, Diane sent out, Diane Boffeld sent a message that is basically a Ford. And the topic is, or the subject is important news and updates on COVID-19. And they cover the payroll protection program, the economic injury disaster loan and a seven step survival guide and one-on-one confidential advising. So you might look for that in your inbox from Diane on Friday. Sure, thank you. Yeah. And I'm putting information out. It sort of seems like we've been hitting all the buttons we can, we've been in touch on almost a daily basis with both of the, with DFA through the folks up in St. Albans, as well as Agilmark and pushing the information out through the co-ops. And then the Farm to Plate Network and other networks, Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association. I think all of us are putting the information out and answering questions to all of those lists. So I would hope that a good amount of us getting out, but we can also provide the documentation just to follow up to this committee as well and sort of all hands on deck to make sure that people know about these programs and they engage. Yeah, and I believe the Farm Bureau is having a call at noon today, actually, just after this meeting to talk about some of these things. And Peter's gonna do a dairy teleconference call tomorrow at two. And I can send that call and information to you all as well. Thanks, Ryan. Any other questions? Anything, any of the three of you would like to say to add to this? Sharon has her, her, her, this hand up. Sharon? I don't, I'm not seeing Diane Boff-Veld's email on my, in my inbox on Friday. So I'll forward this to you. I don't know who this goes out to. I know I get a lot of email from her. Okay, thank you. Terry, you get it? Terry got it. So did you check your ledge email, Sharon? Yeah, okay. All right. Would any of you like to contribute to the conversation here? Any other questions? Okay. Do you want to cover the food security and hunger programs, Erica? Yeah, that's what I, Erica, would you like to move, we can move to that if you'd like. Yes, absolutely. I do want to say just before I jump in there, one more piece of kind of coordinating information and outreach is the Vermont Farm to Plain Network is doing weekly COVID meetings for the food system. And Caroline may be reaching out to Jake if he and connecting with him. Those are really interesting to listen into and there's also opportunities for updates. And it's, you know, it's the whole spectrum of the food system. So it's how our ag producers are doing the nutrition side as well as sort of the supply of food and how it's sort of playing out along the whole supply chain is really, really interesting. And I encourage you to reach out for that. Okay, we are going to have on Friday, we're going to have Betsy Rosenbluth come and talk to us about Farm to School. But is that Jay Clara? You're welcome. No, that, well, no, it's Farm to Plate. So the Farm to Plate, remember, yeah, the Farm to Plate Network so that the broader network and those are just, but Jake Clara, right? You're talking about? Jake Clara with Farm to Plate. Yeah, so not the Betsy's with Farm to School. Yeah. Yes, yeah, Betsy's going to talk to us on Friday. Maybe we could get Jake as well. We have two hours there. Yeah, but I was just saying, if any of you are interested in listening in, it's a great to those weekly COVID Farm to Plate Network meetings. They're highly informative and all the key players across the whole food chain or food system are on it and giving quick updates. So it's just a great place in terms of, obviously bringing people in, but if you are interested in joining that. Great, thank you. Okay, so let's quickly do, I know we don't have a lot of time here, so I'm going to fly through. I did send a document to Linda. Yes, we'd just like her to put that up. She, we're learning about your screen share. I have it up on my screen, so I'm just kind of going to fly through it. So as I was mentioned before, a lot of the nutrition programs that increases in funding and waivers and allowances and slight changes to the programs came through the Families First Act and there was some subsequent additional funding in the CARES Act. So I'm going to kind of go through this by program. So for WIC, we had 500 million in that first act and the biggest piece to that, besides just getting more money to the states to implement WIC is a lot of different waivers. And when I talk about these waivers, some of these waivers were just granted, but most of these waivers were sought out by our state agencies and they had to like almost petition for these waivers. And the delegation staff have sort of been following along and helping get these waivers, but the state agencies have been doing an excellent job. Some of the first waivers they had to get for WIC was just be able to waive that physical presence because how do you get people signed up for WIC without having that? So medical documentation, waivers, so you don't have to do those in person and then sort of some more nuanced things around what's being offered, substitutions, because there's a lot of restrictions on these programs. So that's given the flexibility for our Department of Health to continue to serve WIC and sign new people up as well. So that's been really great. Our Department of Health has done an excellent job there and we'll see if we get any subsequent increases in funding. I don't know what this fourth package will look like in terms of funding, but we're always asking for more funding for all of these programs. Erica, I would ask Linda, if she hasn't loaded this onto our website, if she could do that, that'd be great. Thank you so much. Yeah, sure thing. Again, this is a snapshot in time and I've been adding waivers to this week, almost daily. So it is, again, it's one of those moving targets that that's why I put a date at the top. And I haven't updated it, but I don't think there's any new waivers this week. So in moving onto the Commodity Assistance Programs and Emergency Food, the first bill had 400 million in it. The second bill, I believe, had 450 million in it. What that means is that our food banks are getting more money through the T-FAT program for food assistance in Vermont. I believe that first round of 400 million in the Families First Act, the food bank in Vermont received about, I don't have the exact number in front of me, I think it was about $550,000. So obviously we get only a small portion of that 400 million. And then I'm hoping at least they'll have at least 600,000 in that next round that should be coming, that's from the CARES Act that should be coming, hopefully in the next couple of weeks or maybe a month. I'm not quite sure how quickly we'll get that money. The food bank has been doing an excellent job using this money. They are working with a lot of state partners right now their need has been drastically up. Like they're almost like, I think they've sent out food and money to the food shelves around the state and the need is so high that they do have a big concern that they're not gonna be able to meet the needs. Especially as the direct payments to Vermonters, these unemployment benefits are still taking a while to kick in, other support for self-employed are taking a while. And we are going to see an increasing spike in food insecurity in the state, which is gonna be pretty drastic. And they do have some waivers here. Right now we're still trying to get. So the main bulk of that commodity food money is through TFAP for the food shelves and the food shelves in the food bank. But there's also that CACFP funding for adults. Those are like food box, there's like sort of like a pre-made food box that goes out to seniors that are eligible. And they're trying to get some, they've sent out two boxes in one delivery kind of, well, it's not delivery, it's a pickup, but it goes to places all over the state. And they're trying to get more food out, but they are looking seeking for some additional flexibility there that we're monitoring. Oh yeah, go ahead. Eric, could you just say what the acronyms are? Cause not all of us are completely. Sorry about that. Yeah. No worries. So CACFP is, oh, I'm sorry, I actually put this waiver in the wrong place. I'm gonna send you a new document. I dumped that in here and I was thinking CSFP, that's the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. That's for the seniors. I accidentally put this CACFP in the wrong place. It's actually, this is actually child and adult feeding program, care feeding program. So those are for daycares and adult daycare centers. I'm gonna move that in the right place. And then I added it the last minute this morning. I'm sorry. And I put it in the wrong place. Don't worry about it. If you can just spell out the acronyms the first time around, that would be great. Thanks. Absolutely. And just wanna say one more thing about this commodity food money. We are hoping in this next round in C4, we're calling it the Fourth Relief Act, Stimulus Act, that there will be more money for commodity food. But we would love to see some flexibility in how that's spent. And we, all the offices are pushing for that money to be able to be just given to the food bank, to be able to buy directly from local producers, rather than having to just go through sort of this commodity buying system, which comes in from often far off places. So that is something that we're all looking into. And we will keep you posted on that. Snap. So we had increases in the amount of money overall, just knowing that there would be more people eligible as they lost their jobs. But we have not actually seen any kind of increase in actual amounts per family or per person who gets snapped. So there's a lot of work I think we need to do in Snap and all the offices are working to get a boost in Snap, perhaps change some of the income eligibility and basically just to really beyond just sort of ramping up, ramping it up in terms of allowing more people to access it, which is very important, but changing and making things a lot more flexible. The other piece I just wanted to mention that's not in here, but all of our offices are talking about it is right now, if you're using, if you're on Three Squares, Vermont and you have an EBT, you don't really have the option of ordering something online or doing like a call in with curbside pickup because of the strict rules that Snap has. So that's very problematic when you have somebody at home and they are at risk and they do not wanna be exposing themselves by going into a store. So all of the offices are looking at a bunch of different options. There's possibilities to try to push USTA to do online, allow online Snap purchases or some other possible fixes there, so I just wanted to alert you to that, that we're having that conversation. So for senior nutrition, I just wanted to mention that there was more money in the family's first act for meals on wheels as well as, well, for congregate meals, although they can't congregate. So a lot of those are pickup service right at the, so the senior centers, for example, will be making food and they'll be pickup and then they're doing, obviously, meals on wheels, we've heard the numbers are going up and up, the need is there, seniors need our, you know, sheltering at home, need more food and so we're monitoring, all the offices are monitoring that situation very closely, checking in with the area agencies on aging and making sure our seniors have adequate nutrition. Child nutrition in school meals, there has been an incredible amount of waivers there. Our schools are doing, you've probably heard just a phenomenal job at using these waivers to creatively continue to get meals to students through bus routes and all sorts of different things. There's a whole list of waivers that I included there that our agency of education has done a great job and the delegation has worked with them on securing and I'm not gonna get into all of those, but I'm sure you've heard stories in your community how just incredible this is. One issue that, you know, Hunger Free Vermont's really alerted us to is this, and I'm sure Betsy will mention as well when she comes in to testify that this, when the school's done what's gonna happen and a lot of schools will continue through summer feeding programs, but if a school doesn't wanna do that, they don't have to, there's no mandate that they're not gonna require like they are now to provide meals to students. So we are worried about that potential happening. I think I'll stop there and take questions. Erica, when the schools were to continue the summer feeding programs, would they get the same kind of reimbursements they do during that actual school year? It's a slightly different formula because it's a different program in a way, but yeah, they are, they're still reimbursements and there is actually some pretty good flexibility within that summer feeding program. There's also this, and I didn't write it here and Betsy may know and of course, Inora would know from Hunger Free Vermont, but this something in the last bill that had around summer EBT. So giving students like three squares Vermont cards for their families to be able to use during the summer. And I don't have any information about that here, but I will, I'll work with Tom and Ryan's counterparts in their office who cover nutrition and make sure we get something to you, Carolyn, about that summer EBT program. That would be fantastic. Thanks so much, Erika. Are, do we have any questions for our three guests today? Vicki, her hand is up. Vicki, you've got a blue sky again with clouds. So sometimes it's hard to see your little hand. Vicki. Sorry, couldn't get that button. Erika, you mentioned about commodities increasing, increasing funding for that. And we just heard yesterday how dairy farmers are struggling because we can't consume dairy products at restaurants and such. So our commodities, I'm sure they produce, they provide dairy, but are there efforts to even increase that through the commodities to help farmers? Yeah, we've all been talking about it. And maybe Tom can chime in because we did our offices sent a letter to USDA asking for dairy purchases for commodity foods. And there's sort of this ongoing conversations. We were on the phone with DFA yesterday talking about this, lots of different conversations. I don't think there's a ton of clarity yet exactly how we can do that, especially thinking about it from a Northeast perspective with our plants. But Tom, do you wanna add some stares? Hold on a sec, Tom, you're muted. Okay, there you go. Try again. Okay, I muted myself just with a button here. Thank you for that. Yeah, as Erika said, we weighed in early on with a letter pushing for bulk purchase of commodities, just seeing what was gonna happen in the dairy sector pretty quickly. And we're working on a letter now, Senator Leahy is working on it with the ranking member, Scavano, I'm looking for a Republican sign on and we're also sharing it with Senator Sanders office and kind of all of the above for help with dairy and that would double down and again, request that there be bulk purchases of dairy commodities as well as listening to some of the standards around home milk and feeding programs. So those efforts are being made. And I talked early on about the money that Secretary Perdue has to spend fairly broadly and those dollars, some of them could go to these types of purchases. So it's on the list of things that we're pushing. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. John O'Brien's hand is up. There we go. Erika, last week we heard from Abby Willard, I think, and she said that you could buy seed starts with SNAP benefits. And so if you could help us also with getting both word out to people on three square, but also trying to include nurseries maybe in that too, as far as like a curbside pickup for people wanting to use their three square or over the phone be able to use your card, VBT card, it would be great. Okay, thanks for that. Also, Sharon has her hand up. Sharon, are you gonna mention what Jackie Folsom sent to you? Okay, okay. So Jackie Folsom contacted me and let me know that with the summer feeding program from the schools that the word is, they'll be reimbursed for the food, but not the transportation. Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah, but that's a great, great point and that's very true. So schools will have to, if they wanna keep doing that, we'll have to dip into their own budget. You know, in looking at how we can fill some gaps here, I would suggest and I'm happy to continue up with folks. I also cover FEMA for the Senator and where we have schools or nonprofit organizations stopping up that have an unmet financial need. If the program, for instance, around feeding doesn't cover that, there's a substantial chance that they can be reimbursed by FEMA after providing food, shelter, medicine, et cetera. So I would encourage feeding program schools or otherwise that don't see all their costs being met to confer with the Vermont Emergency Management folks and see if they can apply for FEMA reimbursement for those expenses. Great. Thank you, Tom. I see another hand up from John O'Brien and then Sharon. Sorry, I forgot to put my hand down. Oh, okay. Sharon, oh, your hand is down now too. Okay. We're still getting the hang of hand up and down and muting and what have you. All of this is just to practice for when we go on the floor. All right. Any other questions? Tom, did you wanna say something about dairy? I got, there's a, I feel like an air traffic control person here I gotta tell you because not only am I paying attention to the screen but there's chat going on which is basically sending me messages about the stuff. So if I get distracted, please understand. Tom, did you wanna say something about dairy? Or just see whether we wanna discuss that some. We already talked about the bulk purchases and I'll make a plug since it looks like Ryan's still muted that Congressman Welch, I believe was doing a fairly comprehensive call on dairy. Is that one o'clock tomorrow, Ryan? Yep. And I'll send the info to Linda so she can share it with you all. There's some, we have a cap on how many people we can have on board, but so I would just encourage everyone to register if you're interested with the link that I'll send around. But yeah, we'll be doing a call to hear from the, both Anson at the state and then hear from folks with Agra Mark and the St. Albans Co-op, DFA and the organic folks to just get an update on the state of the market and then we wanna hear from farmers. So if you know farmers that are interested or have questions, please share the info with them. We wanna know what they're dealing with and how we can be helpful. Ryan, thanks for that. We did get a message about that. Maybe it was from you. I know that we noted that participation was limited. So Terry, who is our representative to the Milk Commission signed up for that. And if you think that there's room and we could all be part of it, maybe those of us who aren't committed already to something else could hop on. Yeah, I'll get an update on what the registration looks like and see if we're approaching the cap. And if we're not, I'll certainly let you know that there's some room for you. Honestly, thanks, Ryan. Honestly, I think that if there are farmers who would like to be on that, I wouldn't wanna take one of their spots. I'd rather have Terry represent us and listen and then report back. We could hear from him on Friday as well. So maybe we do wanna limit the number of us who hop onto that call. But we don't, I think my message is clear. We don't wanna take a place that could go to a farmer. Yeah, appreciate that. And I'll keep you posted. Great, thanks so much. All right. Eventually, I just say I'm very, that there's a number of proposals that are circulating. I know that Secretary Talbot has some ideas and the National Milk Producers Federation has put out their agenda. And as I said, Senator Leahy is working with Senator Stabenow and others on a letter to Secretary Perdue. They serve all in approach to open up the Dairy Margin Coverage Program for folks to sign up who are not signed up with some more support for the premiums, the bulk commodity purchases that we talked about and other efforts to help Dairy. I know the National Milk Producers proposal actually has a growth management component as well. But the feeling really is that there needs to be a lot of activity pretty quickly to help get ahead of what is a quickly evolving crisis in Dairy where nobody really has much of a cushion and for the Secretary to use every authority in doing so. Thanks, Tom. Regarding our cheese makers, it would seem to me that they would probably benefit from either the Paycheck Protection Program or the EIDL. Does anybody wanna comment? I think the answer is yes for the most part. I mean, I would certainly encourage them to reach out to their lender of choice, someone they have a relationship with now to explore it because specifically the PPP program would apply depending on their business model and how much of their income comes from cheese and how much of it maybe comes from fluid milk. The EIDL program might be a little bit different, but yeah, obviously they've lost sales to restaurants and shops. So they've been hit particularly hard and we've heard from a lot of them. So encouraging everyone that could potentially benefit to look into the PPP program specifically. Good, good. Thanks. Anything else you wanted to add? All right, I'm not seeing any hands and I'm not seeing Tom, Ryan, or Erica waving at me on the screen. So- It did cross my mind with the video set up the way it is. We don't know whether you're knitting or not. I'm not knitting. Excuse me, my committee knows I am making surgical masks and what I told them earlier was that when I finished this, this batch of 10, I will have made 100. So they're going to hospitals, Grace Cottage, Brattleboro, Springfield, someplace else. Oh, the retreat. I delivered 25 to the retreat the other day. So I've been busy. It's keeping me off the streets. That's for sure. And I'll just also note, I know each of our offices is keeping very up to date lists of resources on our web pages. So a lot of other organizations are as well, but for additional information for any of your constituents who need to easily access what's going on and where they can get assistance, I'd refer you to any one of our web pages. Thanks, Tom. Really appreciate that. Really appreciate everyone's contribution today. Thank you so much for being with us. And if we have any follow-up questions, we'll have Linda reach out to you if that would be okay. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so very much. We really appreciate it. You're welcome to stay with us on the meeting or not. You're welcome to leave too. But thanks again. And thank the senators and the congressmen for all their work down there. I can't imagine what it's like at this time. Just kind of crazy, but thank them for us, please. Thank you, Carolyn. All right.